Istanbul's Built Environment: Approaches to Urban History

In this three-hour workshop, Orhan Esen will talk with students and faculty about the urban history of Istanbul and the neo-liberal transformation of the city since the early 1980s. He will use Istanbul as a case study to address broader questions about how the built environment of cities can be used as archives to analyze the social, cultural, economic, and political processes that form urban space. The workshop is open to all UCLA students and faculty interested in urban history, urban planning, and the built environment as well as the role of social and political movements in shaping urban space.

Orhan Esen is an urban researcher and historian, who teaches in the architecture and urban planning department at Istanbul Bilgi University. He is a founding member of The Taksim Platform and a member of The International Network for Urban Research and Action. His primary research interests are understanding the dynamics of urban change in Istanbul and the cultural, social, political, and ecological consequences of rapid urbanization. Esen also specializes in giving educational tours of Istanbul that read the city’s history through its built environment. In 2005 he published a co-edited book entitled Istanbul: Self-Service City, which examines the impact of neo-liberalism on life in Istanbul.